CHILDREN AND A FEW MINUTES OF LOCK with Louise Lacavalier, Patrick Lamothe, and Keir Knight (Fou Glorieux). Presented by World Stage at Fleck Dance Theatre (207 Queens Quay West). Opens Wednesday (April 13) and runs to April 16, Wednesday-Saturday 8 pm. $15-$45. 416-973-4000.

Add contemporary dance to the list of things that get better with age. Both Allen and Karen Kaeja (Kaeja d'Dance) and Louise Lecavalier (Fou Glorieux) have spent more than two decades earning international acclaim and show no signs of slowing down. Active and important as they enter their 50s, both the Kaejas and Lecavalier present new shows at Harbourfront that both innovate and reflect on their long and storied careers.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kaeja d'Dance, the Toronto-based power couple - who also teach and make films - present 20/20 Vision, an eclectic collection of four new pieces. Karen performs and takes on the new role of choreographer with The Visitor and Quenched, while Allen explores the possibilities of multimedia and movement as choreographer and cinematographer in Armour/Amour and Jericho.

"Karen and I have never remounted a work. It's just not part of who or what we are," explains Allen Kaeja. "That why, for our 20th, we wanted to do a set of all new works."

Lecavalier, on the other hand - who shot to fame in the early 80s thanks to her central role in Edouard Lock's groundbreaking Montreal group La La La Human Steps - will revisit past work, but in a new way.

Her new show (which she debuted in Italy last year) marks a return to the duet formation, and is a mix of old and new pieces. The first portion, Children - a 50-minute theatrically leaning piece about a stressed relationship - was created specially for Lecavalier by British choreographer Nigel Charnock.

"I like it for its simplicity and its humanity," she says on the phone from Montreal, "It's a piece that speaks to everybody, not just dancers."

In the second, shorter portion of her show, she remounts three pieces by Lock from late in her La La La days: one from 1995's Salt, and a pair from 1998's Two.

"I put these pieces together in new ways," she says. "I shrank and adapted some things. It's stripped down, and set to a 13-minute composition by Iggy Pop. I kept the spirit of Edouard's choreography and aesthetic, though. I love his complexity and the way he builds movement with partnering. I missed this dynamic doing only solo work."

The Kaejas credit their longevity to their shared passion for the creative process. "We're constantly creating, so every piece leads to the next. We're both insatiably curious, we don't look back, and that drives us to investigate, explore and push into undefined areas."

For instance, Jericho features an experimental lighting design based on ultraviolet light and a mix of live and prerecorded video projections. "It creates the illusion of the dancers appearing and disappearing - as if they were travelling between dimensions," says Kaeja, his excitement audible over the phone. "It's going to be ballistic!"

Kaeja explains that getting older doesn't mean becoming restricted physically. In fact, for him it's the opposite. "I'm 51, and because I've come to understand kinetics and mechanics implicitly, I can throw people higher, farther and faster, using much less energy than ever before.

"It's been wonderful to mature within this dynamic life, and I feel I have another 20 to 30 years of dance left before I consider slowing down."

Lecavalier - who has fully recovered from a painful hip injury that dogged her career through the 1990s and early 2000s - also sees her future in dance as open-ended and full of possibilities: "It was fun to relearn these pieces" she says. "It felt great to know I could still do those big twirls and crash into the floor.

"What keeps me going after all these years is my love for the art form. The only thing that could ever stop me is self-doubt, which I constantly battle. I hope it never will."